


That softness behind it

by jarofactonbell



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, changbin has tattoos and piercings, changbin is not really a bad boy he just skips school a lot like this kid at my school, everyone is whipped for felix, i am working as fast as i can i apologise for the disjointed updates in the future, inspired by cat on a hot tin roof, it's mostly funny, please don't be sad by the lying thing, so does Minho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 03:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13825401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/pseuds/jarofactonbell
Summary: He's itching to find out how is it that one guy has all these words in him but Felix never heard them uttered aloud and they're left unsaid in the pages of a notebook or at the conclusion of an underground rap battle.They meet in the middle of a floor full of cramped bodies and the words still ring in his head."Let's go somewhere, escape from here.""Really?""Really.""I believe you." And more. But those words are left unsaid.





	1. The grace and comfort of light

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [StrayKids2018DebutPromptsChallengeandCollection](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/StrayKids2018DebutPromptsChallengeandCollection) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ChangBin is a bad guy and Felix shouldn't get involved with him. Thats the only one advice his friend Chan give to him... but when Felix meet ChangBin, his heart is pounding like crazy and he can't barely speak in Korean (or English) because of ChangBin gaze. Stupid Cupid! Felix didn't want to fall in love the first day he went to his new school.
> 
> A/N: Just... something cute (???)
> 
> [also the title is just from the play, do not worry it has little significant i just want to make things sound pretty]

First of all, Felix would like to blame Christopher for all of this. Or Bang Chan. Or whatever he’d like to call himself, gallivanting off to South Korea and studying here.

Second of all, genetics is to blame. Some people just have good genes. Some people just happen to fit and then break all of society’s bar of standards for being attractive. Some people just look plain good while he looks like an overboiled potato, his skin stuck on the bottom of the pan.

Third of all, he’s this close from shoving an entire pen tip onto someone’s scrotum and he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to live this down unless Jisung invents some sort of brainwashing machine thirty years down the track but by that time Felix would’ve moved to Iceland and changed his name to Lorenz Jiminez Osbord, the taxidermist who occasionally paints with snowflakes leftover on his green fence outside of his igloo.

 

Felix blinks. Counts inside his head and tries to formulate a plan of escape. Nothing is coming up. He’s not moving his hand. He should be moving his hand. It looks dangerously close to doing grave damage.

“When you’re done staring at my junk, give me a call and I’ll help you up,” the guy drawls, his stupid attractive face holding no grudge for this very compromising situation where he could lose the chance to pass down his stupid good-looking genes. Felix’s brain does three spins inside his brain in good ol’ gooey brain soup, some language sections aligning and translating to English and upon understanding, he starts stuttering.

Felix when he’s being awkward is a disservice to his actual self (it’s much more embarrassing this actual self). Felix when he’s in a weird situation, doesn’t know how to get out, is in breathing space (roughly a building and a city) of a hot person, he tends to veer extremely close to his instinctive stage, before being birthed into this torturous existence.

Which usually translates to him making vaguely human-esque sounds and going really red in the face.

He’s been told it looks more like an alarming shade of I-am-being-choked-to-death purple, but he never monitored his face in the mirror to humour anyone, even himself, so he’s not about to find out things soon.

The guy is doing a great job of not running away or dying of laughter, so kudos to him. But Felix is only aware of his internal and external crises, therefore he will continue narrating his tragedies in the face of human interaction even though there’s only one outcome every single time.

“I’m so sorry,” he retreats the pen arm. Arm that is holding the pen. Pen arm. What are semantics in the face of human interaction?

“It was extremely entertaining, if that’s the word you’re looking for,” a look down at him on the floor trying to escape.

Felix currently doesn’t care what the guy say or do. He can go off somewhere and be pretty by himself. Felix just wants to escape. Emigration sounds great at the moment. The Nordic lands are merciful to strangers. They speak English there. Felix speaks fluent English. It all adds up. He can’t stay in Korea, no way. It’ll end tragically before the second week.

“You right down there?”

“God – um, yeah – uh,” is the series of words he conjures up, “hello.”

“Seo,” there is a hand and it is offering to help him up, “you look new.”

“Lee,” Felix shakes his head, “I need – leave. Now.”

In a recovery so fast it seems hardly real, he stands on his two feet, shoots past a prominent chin, sharp eyes and the top of soft black hair, shakes his head twice and is out the door before his brain catches up.

The softest ‘what’ reminds his brain that:

  1. he just walked into a classroom, lost from the big group of new students, because he saw a drum set
  2. there was some guy wagging a class inside said classroom
  3. it must’ve been a music room or something because once again, drums. There was a piano and a guitar with busted strings
  4. the guy wasn’t wearing proper uniform, had piercings and the stupidest undercut he had ever seen on a guy
  5. he was too hot
  6. Felix doesn’t need these kinds of problems on his first day



“Oi,” someone hisses at him, “there you are. Come on, Ms Kim thought you fell out of a window.”

The guy is off gallivanting somewhere when Felix tries to peek inside.

 

“Everyone, this is Lee Yongbok. Let’s welcome him warmly.”

He lifts one hand to wave awkwardly, voice lost inside his throat. He knows Korean, barely, he’s sixteen and his family had to return to South Korea to visit his aunt who’s undergoing surgery for her appendix removal.

In foresight he had offered to stay at his friend Christian’s house, but his sisters insisted on staying if he’s staying and his dad had to be a good brother and his mum passed down the ultimatum of them staying for six months then leaving. That sparked three more debates on the validity and worth of education that somehow snowballed into him going to school to Korea where his cousin is staying at until he finishes his high school and he can decide where he wants to be after year twelve.

Which sounded okay at that time but his parents had not prepare him at all. They dropped him off at school and told him to have fun and all he knew in Korean was to say his name and why he’s there.

His face screams ‘kill me’ loud and clear. Someone in the back waves at him and Ms Kim directs him to the guy, who looks like he’s crafted out of clouds and all the goodness on earth.

“Seungmin,” the boy smiles, dimples on both cheeks.

“Felix,” he says in English and then tries to put a Korean accent over it. Seungmin watches him struggle for three counts and gestures for him to sit down, shaking as Felix attempts to still say his own name in his own language. For goodness’ sake he is a mess.

“I understand English, so don’t stress. Australia yeah? There’s a guy here from there as well.”

“Probably my cousin Chan,” he mutters and at this point he’s not too sure if it’s English or the limited Korean he owns. Probably both. His best language is Konglish and he’s going to abuse that until he needs to revert to Korean or English.

“You serious? Do all Australians just,” Seungmin’s eyes are blown wide, “know each other?”

“My mum sent me here because he’s here so no, but we could all know each other. That’d be cool actually.”

“Misters Kim and Lee,” a voice interrupts them, “I’m glad you’re getting acquainted, but we would like to have you two back at our lesson please. Break is in two hours. You can talk then.”

“Yikes,” Felix adds, just for the sound effect.

Seungmin winks at him and turns back to his textbook.

 

Han Jisung is his neighbour. He’s super smart, has more trophies than Felix and his sisters combined, sometimes sets things off in his kitchen for a science experiment and is generally a good kid. He and Felix speak the mutual tongue of Konglish and get along well, _too well_ , because weird people attract mutually weird people. Friends that are weird together and collectively weird onlookers who are not in on the joke stay together until they’re dead, then move on to weird more mortals once they’re ghosts.

 They had become such close and fast friends that in the span of one week, one cannot separate one child from another. The Lees sometimes forget they have one male child in the family, happily adopting Jisung to fun family traditions like screaming at Australian Football Rules over the TV Olivia somehow rigged to screen the live matches but at specific hours like 2.54 am. The Hans embrace Felix with open arms, taking him to their countryside visits and picnics and _oh my god Jisung you never told me you have a beach house, in Mokpo, you rich bitch_. Felix and Jisung come as a package deal. If Felix isn’t at home then he’s with Jisung and vice versa. Rachel threw approximately one (1) fit since they moved in next to Jisung when Felix disappeared off one fine day and emerged home at nine, her screeching rivalling almost Jisung at his most intense obsession with IU’s four note octave. On their occasion there were many complaints, all simultaneously. The police were called because someone or another thought a murder happened. Rachel and his mother baked about a gazillion baskets of compensatory lamingtons and went around distributing those. It was funny in a good way that which Rachel would beg otherwise at the profuse defence that no, she had a right to worry about her stupid brother while it was not very justified that she screamed in his face the minute he came back.

Jisung is his neighbour who betrayed the solidarity of their friendship by simply being in a different classroom than Felix. He tracks down the Han boy by the time break occurs, remembering fragments of their talk the night before, something like 10A3, which according to Seungmin and Yejin, a nice girl, really tall and looks like she can end him in 0.001 second, is next door. Before he can properly chastise Jisung for this abandonment, a blur of overexcited fifteen- year-old boy is all over him and apologising profusely for the brief betrayal.

“I thought we’d be in the same class,” Jisung seizes his shoulder and tries to shake the life and force out of his body, “I genuinely thought we’ll be in the same classroom.”

“Stop shaking me,” he complains (but doesn’t say so).

“Do you know anyone? Do you have a friend? Ryujin is super nice and she has short hair, super easy to find her in the class, easily the tallest kid, oh wait no there’s Seungminnie you can go to him, he speaks English, super cute super squishy, my glorious child-”

“Sungie you are telling me words but I don’t follow them-”

He’s suddenly grounded as Jisung grabs his face, their mutual faces suddenly level. Jisung is shorter than him. He had pulled Felix down to his level. He had been reduced to this maniac’s level.

It’s frankly insulting. He waits for two beats for Jisung to plough through an explanation before he’s moving back up and never coming down again. Nope nuh uh.

“I’m taking you to meet a friend. He’s playing basketball right now.”

Felix stands up to his full height and refuses to descend into the arena again. Once is enough.

“I want to walk around the school. We’ll do it tomorrow.”

“But Lix he’s like really friendly and tall and cuddly.”

“That’s not enough incentive to get someone to do something. I’m looking for Chris. I’ll see your friend tomorrow.”

Jisung start to jut out his lower lip in an attempt to recreate the Puppy Look. Felix only knows him for an approximate total amount of two weeks. He’s not trained for this, testament of how Rachel and Olivia can still get thing from him now and then with the slightest simpering look. He sends a silent apology to Chris, hoping that wherever he is he can understand that Jisung is a force not of nature, but of hell itself, and there’s either Jisung who can get his way easily or a Jisung who can get his way forcefully.

Today seems like a Felix Must Suffer More Than Usual Day.

 

“That,” Jisung points the butt of his ballpoint to a considerably tall kid amongst other tall kids, “is Hyunjin.”

“Okay great can I leave now?”

Jisung doesn’t hear his whinging at social interaction. The kid leans back and focuses all the strength from all the stress that’s associated with being good at STEM and practicing the core skill all the time to the war cry he emits over one soccer field and to the basketball court.

“HYUNJINNIE-GAH!”

No one really turns. Granted, no one really reacted. That in itself is a concern. People should be frightened when there is screaming. Someone could be mugged. There is a knife-wielding maniac walking around. Someone’s cat went up a tree. Those things are of public interest. There should be significance placed on them.

But no, not here. One child says something, waves and begin a cow’s amble towards them, taking up all the time Felix could invest in getting to know the school better, learn how to harvest all the collective stupidity he’ surrounded with to power a town, learn occultism and voodoo arts. Jisung falls in a mess of limbs forward for the guy to catch, elbows and acnes and teenage boy gross but the guy catches him with courtesy, not complaining much. In fact, he looks a bit pleased that Jisung bestowed this glorious blessing onto his underserving and mortal self.

Felix should’ve known better. Should’ve avoided Jisung more. Should’ve just stayed with Seungmin. That sounded like a smart option. Why did he not engage with the smartness left in his brain? Why did he not live how he should live?

“Who is this?” The kid asks Jisung who’s rearranging himself to be even more comfortable.

“Kid who moved in next door, Felix,” Jisung rubs his face on the front of Hyunjin’s shirt.

“I’m Hyunjin,” he beams at Felix, “nice to meet you, ignore Sungie we haven’t seen each other in a couple of days and he gets withdrawal symptoms.”

Wow.

Wow.

 _Wow_.

Jisung is many things but he is not a liar, no sir he isn’t. God damn Hwang Hyunjin is pretty. God must’ve skipped Felix in the decent looking family when he pulled the release lever for all the storks to deliver fresh babies for expecting mothers because wow, wow, wow Hyunjin is really good-looking.

“You’re so pretty,” is what he tells Hyunjin, “and you are making it really hard for me to not feel bad about my face, which is melted potato skin stuck on a pot.”

“No, no no no,” Hyunjin extends a kind hand to him, “you look good, don’t say that.”

“His face is the only thing good about him, do not be fooled,” Jisung finally disengages from Hyunjin, “everything is a tripping hazard with this giraffe.”

“Don’t slander me,” the boy pouts, “you know I’m delicate.” Jisung pats him in consolation, cooing over the fact that Hyunjin bends down for him to reach his cheeks. Meanwhile Felix is over here wondering how those two even become friends are there like special tricks to be a Jisung can he learn it too?

“So as I was sayin-” Hyunjin suddenly loses a few centimetres in his swerve to avoid is that a lump of grass? He quickly regains his dignity and balance, although the latter is only secondary and not really that important. In Felix’s head Hyunjin is still cute, but like a newborn baby cute, clumsy and likeable. He apologises to God for balancing things out. Hyunjin may have the face of Adonis himself bless his heart but-

And down he goes. In a heap of long limbs and pointy elbows as well. Jisung lets go of him for one second and Hyunjin presumably tripped over something and he’s curled in a human rolly polly of shame down on the concrete, embarrassment and all the regret colouring his whines.

“Are we going to,” Felix gives Jisung a look, “help him up? Be decent people?”

“Nah,” the boy shrugs, “he’ll snap out of it soon enough, don’t worry.”

“Jisung if I collapse in a human heap of shame I expect you to raise me up, not let me waddle in my miseries.”

Hyunjin looks up and mouths “My true friend” to Felix and resumes face down to the concrete.

“Seriously Jinnie, that looks so uncomfortable, let me help you, get up, come on, ignore Jisung he’s always been a prick, you should know that, come on, where’s your class, let’s walk there.”

After one Hyunjin is successfully escorted to his class 10A4, Felix and Jisung part ways in solemnity (Jisung; on Felix’s end it sounds like relief) in front of his class.

“Where’d you go this morning?” Jisung clings onto his finger, “couldn’t find you at all.”

“No,” is Felix’s one and only response, “I am a bad and foul watermelon slice” before he lets go quite abruptly of Jisung’s grip and flees, all in less than five seconds.

 

Later Chris tracks him down and takes him on a tour, with Jisung thankfully locked up somewhere in some maths events.

“Oi, Chris, why’s there a music room with broken stuff in it?”

“Ignore that. Don’t come near that. Avoid it. Stuff goes on in there.”

“Like?”

“Drugs, alcohol, knife fights, voodoo, some sort of whole school poker game at some point. Point is, no music rooms. Unless Seungmin is with you. I trust Seungmin. I trust him to be responsible for everything and everyone.”

“That’s nice. That says a lot about me. Thank you for your vote of confidence.”

“Oh don’t be smart. You yourself know there’s no self-control when it comes to our family tree. I stress-bought a 3D model of a Star Wars ship last night. Laura had to call the customer service people and cancelled it for me, all the way from America. Just stay off from the dodgy places and we’re good, yeah?”

“Okay okay grandpa, I will. Sheesh, you’re like mum, but worse.”


	2. A tenderness which was uncommon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi yes please forgive me as I try to update as much and as fast as I can, I'm so sorry for this!!!
> 
> Also Minho with tattoos is a look I support.

Sometime life is strange. Sometimes life throws things together in one spot and things just fester there. Sometimes life is waking up from an afternoon nap to find all the people his age lounging out in the lounge, Chris and some other guy flipping through textbooks and pushing Jisung down at the same time.

“I’m going back to sleep,” he says in English or Korean or a hybrid of I Need More Sleep, “goodbye.”

“It’s our study group!” Seungmin waves at him, “join, join!”

“I’m good, no,” he denies instantly, “I am happy with my meagre scores.”

“I took your maths stuff and have them here, so we can go through the questions you were struggling with,” Jisung taps his pen against his temple, “Jinnie you put it the wrong formula here.”

Hyunjin lowers himself lazily over Seungmin and Jisung, squinting at whatever Jisung points out for him.

“It is right you prick, don’t tell me lies,” Hyunjin looks at him accusingly, “that’s physics, those are the formulas, shut up.”

“I’m still going back inside,” Felix points to the direction of the bedroom, “good afternoon.”

“No you won’t,” the stranger drags him by the collar and drags him back, “you are studying, right now, your grades are sad and so will your life be if you don’t sit your ass down and do some work. After you finish you can go off with the children somewhere, but right now you have a shit ton of homework that you need to finish.”

Funny how Felix just does things that people force him into it, either by excessive loyalty and love or by aggression and display of violence. He lets himself be manhandled into maths, with Seungmin helpfully hugging him and whispering that it grants people strength or some other such cutesy thing. Jisung guides him through maths and Hyunjin through physics, with the other three helping him through everything else when he needs help. It’s not that he is entirely dumb, it’s just now everything is in Korean and he has a hard time adjusting to reading regular English scripts to the Hangul alphabet but he’s quickly evolving to the not failing student his parents hope him to be. Why is he not smart like his sisters or even Chris? Where did all the smart genes go? Olivia is a baby, and Olivia is already scraping 8s and 9s. Felix is toeing the middle line at his 6s and the rare 7s, but Jisung reassures him it’s a normal thing to struggle when you move to a new country and you can’t really expect to be that masterful at a language after _being here for about a month, Lee, that’s not humanly possible._

When they’re done and Woojin, warm and comfortable when he’s not coercing children into being responsible, allows them to go elsewhere.

“But come back in an hour. One hour. Sixty minutes. You all got that?” He points a ruler in each of their faces before Jisung can hack his way outside. Seungmin and Hyunjin nod obediently, Felix’s is more of an ‘I’m just going along with it’ and Jisung is already outside. Hyunjin can handle that mess of a child when the need arises. Felix will just be on the sidelines.

Once Chris closes the door, Jisung takes off and Hyunjin quickly follows. Felix runs after, curious as to where three sixteen-year-old could possibly do on a Saturday afternoon that’s not the arcade or on their phones. Seungmin’s squeaky shoes stop in front of somewhere and three cooees after in which Hyunjin falls at least four times, Jisung is clambering in front of a glass shop window and cooing to the display inside.

“I love you and I will protect you with my life,” Seungmin tells the display.

Felix walks over to see what is all the hype about and understands everything. Suddenly the stars align. All the universes combine to create the Mega Ultimate Universe. His acnes clear, his skin moisturised, Rachel finally revealing to him why she has dolls without eyes in her room.

The shop is a dog café. And in front of the café there are tiny puppies who just want to play and be loved and Felix is 10000% down with this arrangement. 

 

It becomes some sort of a routine, either before the Big Fat Saturday Study Sesh or after it, the four of them always huddle in front of the café to stare at the dogs in varying degrees of affection, but nonetheless love, because, come on, they’re puppers. Everyone loves dogs. Even dogs love other dogs. It’s not shade just fact.

It’s a bit dodgy whenever they just go and come back exactly 90 minutes after the study session because Jisung had gained enough trust from the girl inside the café to gain free entrance into it. ‘Trust’ is putting things lightly. ‘Desperation’ comes very close to what Jisung consistently exhibits on a weekly and nowadays, daily basis because he has to bond with this specific Shiba Inu and it’s a mutual bond and maybe by human decency or something the girl lets them in every Saturday and Jisung cries actual tears when the Inu nestles in his lap like it belongs there.

The entrance thing might also be attributed to Hyunjin simply standing there and pushing back his hair like he’s in a Pantene commercial, always shooting an ad with whatever angle he chooses to face. Sweat or whatever don’t apply to him. They magnify his beauty. The owners must’ve thought that by having Hyunjin inside sales will increase significantly (it does, right away Felix counts about 3 girls had entered and bought some things and 4 more by the window), so they just let them in. The visits are then agreed to be cut down to 75 minutes and Jisung is sad to let go of his new friend, Kumi, he vows to return the next week to play with the male dog.

The next couple of weeks he attempts and fails in trying to acquire the dog, because Seungmin is really conscientious and moral and no, Jisung, you can’t just steal someone’s dog, that’s illegal. The owner chases them out and calls Kumi to return, the dog giving Jisung one last and sad lick on his face and returns to his owner and Jisung might’ve cried a little in the failed attempts in which they bribe his happiness in return for ice cream. By the fifth time Jisung looks sad and the time limit is reaching 55 minutes, Hyunjin suddenly steers their entourage to a different road to a weirder part of town. Felix only gives him suspicious looks behind his head, but Hyunjin swears up and down that this will make Jisung happy again and Felix doesn’t know Jisung that long to really grasp what constitutes his happiness so he just lets things happen.

Seungmin squeezes his hand and reassures him that Hyunjin is trustworthy. And if needs be they’re running first.

Seungmin is cool like that.

 

“This is a tattoo parlour,” at a different time and a different place in different circumstances, Felix would’ve been proud of how his accent is just full on Seoullite. But he is in front of a tattoo place and his friends have ties to people who in the back of Felix’s head, are gang members who can beat all of them collectively bloody and injured in less than a minute and he cannot stress how stressed he is.

“Lee, seriously, does Australia not have these?” Jisung already is prancing up to the entrance and knocking. Seungmin shakes his head, mouthing ‘it’s really fine’ to an agitated Felix and someone comes out from the infinite darkness and doom of tattoo parlours. He has tattoos on his neck and arms and wears studs, which, understandable. Seungmin and Hyunjin wave while Felix drops into an automatic bow and it takes about half of his bow for Jisung to fling himself at the guy.

Jisung had taken down people who do judo before. Jisung is more than capable of mowing through unathletic mortals with too much ease. But the guy accepts the burden of catching Jisung, making it look too easy for someone with a similar physique to Felix. Felix crumbles when Jisung throws his body onto him. He deals with aquatic activities, not land. He can’t just catch people like how he swims freestyle. Life does not work like that.

“Honey!” Is Jisung’s greeting. Hyunjin coos like he’s watching Zootopia and they hug it out at the end.

Felix is understandably confused. It doesn’t help that the inner timer inside his head goes ‘It had now passed 90 minutes 10 minutes ago and the two responsible adults will dig up this entire city in their search for the four of them’.

“I don’t-” Felix physically demonstrates the action of grasping at air, “understand. Anything. Everything. Life. The universe. Nothing at all.”

“That’s Lee Minho,” Hyunjin introduces, “a friend of ours.”

“He’s super nice and friendly,” Seungmin helpfully supplies, “and he doesn’t mind it when we visit him.”

“Minnie, you say everyone is friendly even if you see them stick a knife into somebody’s arm,” Felix reminds him gently, “and how come you’re friends with a tattoo artist? I don’t know any tattoo artist. I don’t know a lot of art people in general.”

“He graduated early, I think, and he’s in university now, studying modern art,” Seungmin takes his hand to glance at his watch, “oh we should call Chan-hyung. We overstayed our time.”

“You must be Felix, hello,” Minho bows to him and Felix quickly returns the bow, “how is Korea? Alright?”

“How does – what, yeah, um-” Felix looks back and forth at Jisung trying to become a part of Minho’s body who actually is pulling him closer, as close as two bodies can physically get anyway. “I have no words to describe what I want to ask.”

“He hasn’t been able to meet up with me in a few weeks because he’s busy helping you settle in on Korean soil,” Minho tries to explain, “now he has withdrawal symptoms because he feels bad about both situations.”

“Yeah but what are you to-”

“Oh my stupid children!” He hears Chris calls, “You have phones. Pick it up or text me. Woojin nearly went to the police. Don’t do that again.” He jogs over to the front step of the parlour, ruffles everyone’s head and stands next to Felix, berating him about the phone situation.

“I was going to call you.”

“Clearly you didn’t. Don’t make this a recurring thing. It happens once and it won’t happen again. We’re good?”

“Yes, mother. Yo, who’s-” but he’s interrupted by Jisung himself.

“Yo Lee.”

“You what mate.”

“Why can’t I visit my moderately tattooed beau on a Saturday huh? Are Saturdays sacred now? Am I not allowed to go anywhere now?” Minho kisses Jisung’s eyes and successfully rescuing everyone from a potential long rant. Felix is thankful, he is, but he’s just confused about:

  1. How nobody, legit, nobody is reacting to that boyfriend statement
  2. Ain’t Koreans like, super homophobic?



“Chris, mate,” he leans over, in English, murmurs to Chris, “they can do the gay thing here?”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Chris singsongs, “I see nothing, I know nothing, they’re two people who like each other and want to date each other, done.”

“Wow, solid advice there, mate. Can we go now?”

“Children,” Chan announces dramatically, “we are to leave, soon, right now. Say your goodbyes. When Jisung and I do the impressive rapping stage I will call for your support. Right now we need to go back and make sure Woojin doesn’t have a meltdown at home.”

Minho lets go of Jisung to hug Seungmin, Hyunjin and Chris. He winks at Felix while shaking his hand, clasping it in a gentle grip with both of his hand bracketing it, saintly smile never once insincere.

“Let’s meet under more favourable circumstances next time, yes, Felix?”

Felix just nods dumbly because he is dumb and follows Chris blindly, locking hands once more with Seungmin.

 

Jisung and Minho share a quick but saturated kiss, Minho’s hands clutching Jisung’s face and a murmur of ‘See you when we can’. They let go quickly and Jisung runs to catch up to Hyunjin who lingers around for him and they both disappear from sight, Minho watching until he can’t see Jisung anymore.

“Boyfriend came to visit?” Someone asks from inside the parlour. Minho dusts his pants.

“Yep, him and his friends. They’re from your school, right, Binnie?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know any of them. Come back in. This design is mucking me up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE LEAVE THE COMMENTS AND KUDOS EVERYWHERE I AM SUPER HAPPY TO READ EVERYTHING
> 
> And the titles actually have no relevance to the story I just really like pretty and fake deep titles


	3. The opalescent tones of reflecting glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI hi, please forgive me as I try to battle through my failing keyboards and exams coming up!! More chapters will go up as soon as humanly and technologically possible!!

Felix calls himself dumb, but mostly with math and science. With the mother tongue, it takes him a week or two to fall back into it and by third week, he’s basically a Seoul person. He’s fully adapted to his new habitat, as an invasive species. It must be reiterated that he is seen with Jisung all the time, the school populace naming them Jilix and each of them ½ of the duo. Felix likes it, likes having someone so close to him they’re basically the same person. The only time when they’re not together is when Jisung goes off on dates with Lee Minho or when Felix is at swimming, otherwise they’re always joined at the hips outside of their respective classes. Because he is ½ of the Jilix duo, he is expected to know where Jisung is all the time. 95% of the time he knows and the 5% he doesn’t know but he makes it so that things are vague enough for bluffs to be true.

Someone asks for Jisung at room 3D. Felix takes himself and walks into it, Jisungless and ready to repeat the reason why Jisung isn’t at school today.

“I thought,” Yejin attempts to slice air with the back of her hand, floundering it in front of Felix’s nose, “you come as a package deal thing with Han, y’know, buy one get one free.”

“Normally, but he’s dying somewhere doing his science-y things so unfortunately you get me,” Felix offers the prawn crackers he looted off Hyunjin’s pantry before leaving to school, “but I offer a refund.”

“You’re tall, so it’ll do,” she dismisses his weak and frankly too salty chips, “I need a ladder boy to hand the posters up. Hurry and we can all leave.”

Normally Jisung is all over this thing and everything is under control because of his maths magic. Jisung designs and Yejin directs and they’re a really efficient team to a scary degree – things get down quickly and too nicely when those two work together. Felix tags along to these scheming sessions where he helps out but doesn’t really do anything, sits around and supervises Jisung lest he lights something on fire. He has less time to do that recently because Hyunjin finds out he dances and puts his name in the dance club and that’s every Monday afterschool and lunch and it’s fun, sure, but he’d rather be with Jisung or Seungmin, people who care deeply about him. Hyunjin cares too, but Hyunjin wants to increase the population of the dance club so that’s why he’s executing force now when potential is spotted. Felix was a victim to the Colgate smile and gave consent too easily. Damn pretty people and their white teeth. Definitely a hassle to freedom of thought. There’s a Make Your School Look Presentable day where middle school children come in and explore the place. It’s good fun and the design committee goes all out every year. The goal is to beat last year’s attempts. This year they have Jisung who designs and Sanha who draws. Everything will be the best.

Felix helps hang a total of four (4) posters until the angles Jisung’s plan B had lent itself to beyond its use and not only are they out of options, they are out of the backup and the backup of the backup.

Yejin seems very stressed. Felix would be too if all of his pre-planning schemes all finish before new plans are drafted. Sanha actively avoids eye contact with the girl muttering to the stack of paper she holds in her grip, chanting a ritual or trying to summon Jisung from his competition.

Eunbin slaps a fist to her palm, somewhere near the window. About ten different heads shoot up and tell her to ‘shush, we’re trying to work here Binnie.’

“Seo,” she flourishes her nails for Felix to see, “guy in the music room.”

“Nice nails,” Felix comments and she hits his shoulder in what supposed to be friendly banter but Eunbin has a black belt in arm wrestling (Woojin very gently dissuaged this theory but he hasn’t seen Eunbin destroy the entire sixteen-year-old populace yet so he can’t say much about this) and when she hits, she hits hard.

Felix flinches only marginally and she tries to apologise, but Yejin comes in between them, stack of paper pointed at Felix.

“I don’t trust Seo,” she’s looking at him but she’s talking to Eunbin, “he’ll slice heads off with guitar strings the minute some poor soul step in there.”

“Send Felix,” Eunbin volunteers him, too cheerful for slicing heads off with guitar strings as a previous statement. He’s trying to look less paler than he is now but it is a futile effort. “He does judo. He can defend himself.”

“I know Seo is arguably the smartest kid next to Jisung-”

“Don’t listen to her,” Eunbin is in his face, “Seo is the smartest kid in this school when it comes to academics but he’s here 3 days out of 6 and people rarely see him. By rare I mean not at all. People have better luck trying to find Nessie than him.”

“That’s nice and everything, Binnie, but I value my life and I don’t want to be decapitated at sixteen, please, have mercy on my soul-”

Yejin holds a hand up. Felix shuts up.

“Go and check. You don’t need to come in, just see if he’s there. If he is then come back and get us. If he isn’t then come back. The point is you are only a scout, not a sacrifice. We’re not that cruel.”

Eunbin ventures one “Well I mean” and receives raised eyebrows from Yejin. She gives Felix a thumb up and slides over to Sanha, bouncing with too much hype.

Yejin hands him her precious stack and makes him repeat the instructions of “Come back don’t come in” until he can say it in German. She sends him off and watches until he leaves. In other circumstances it might have been creepy, but Yejin is nice in her own way and she looks after everyone. Just a tad too stressed during important events. No one really blames her. Felix would be stressed too if he has to organise a school-wide event to attract potential students. He’ll cry and quit even before he can do anything.

And this school sounds like it has a lot of music rooms. How many had he seen so far? Three? Five? Twenty-two thousand? Do average Koreans even study or play music? Can schools even afford more than one pianos? Aren’t those super pricey and the cost of many illegal trades in the organ black market?

What if the guy is Scrotum Piercing Dude who Felix nearly assaulted on his first day of school? No. NO. Can’t be. That’s too much of a coincidence. Fate or God or whoever play darts with his destiny wheel isn’t that cruel.

 

That’s when he hears it, the sound, the beckoning sound.

Felix’s eyes react slower than his ears which in terms of physics and the ways of life, defy the very foundations of nature. Light travels faster than sound. He should see things first before he can hear them, but Felix had always been an anomaly and he was born an anomaly and when ‘Heyo heyo heyo heyo’ plays his eyes lock down onto the sound source and he kicks his way in, belting the words to No Diggity.

“Yo what the f-” someone goes and the music still blasts. Does Felix care? No. He has to compete with how fast the guy is rapping. He practiced this. This is a skill by now.

Felix is half way through the chorus when the music shuts off and he kicks off his shoes in protest, already picking one up to lob at the guy.

“That was certainly interesting,” says a very familiar voice, “ah.”

Ah indeed.

On Felix’s end it looks like someone stepped on his sisters’ things and blamed it on him. On the guy’s end it looks like someone presented him with the toxic blue ring octopus that nearly got him that one time and now they’re all ‘here, touch your murderer and reconcile, like the near-death incident never happened at all.’

So it’s basically a ‘fat chance’ emblazoned on the guy’s face and Felix doesn’t blame him. Blue ring octopi are nasty. Some mighty surf guard had a meltdown when he brushed against the tentacles when Felix was at Bondi, around seven years old. Not a fun experience. Don’t much with those and no pain will be felt.

They’re still intently staring at each other, but Felix doesn’t want to start the conversation. This was not a situation he’s prepared to be confronted with so he’s making the choice not to engage in it. Stand and stare he would.

“Scrotum boy,” a corner of the guy’s mouth goes up.

Oh wow. Wow. Felix forgets for a moment that the victim in question is really hot. Really amazingly and unfairly hot. Screw the world. Why can’t he be hot too. Why can’t he not speak. Where are all the words he need to have when he needs to have a choice?

“Ew your undercut is ugly,” is what he decides is the safest combination of words to say to a ridiculous cute guy. He’s lucky he got words out this time. Last time there were no words, only acute embarrassment. Now there’s just acute embarrassment.

“Ew you kicked down the door, rat,” the guy drawls, “why are you here?”

Understand that Felix is really bad with this whole talking to cute boys thing (Hyunjin doesn’t count, the kid trips over grass just hours before). He should just retire, move to the countryside, not engage in human interaction. Iceland? Amazing. Any of the Nordic nations would work. He can just swim there and seek political asylum. He’s North Korean from now on.

“You’re not talking again,” the guy notes, “I don’t bite, or slice people’s heads off with guitar strings.”

“That’s not a good thing,” Felix tells him.

“I normally do it with fishing lines instead. Quicker and cleaner.”

“I’m leaving. Oh wait, hold on,” he presents the stack of paper to Seo? Seoul? Soo? man guy thing dude. “Please look at this.”

“Why should I?”

“It’s a maths thing, can you just check it over? I’ll go away if needs be?” _Because I value my life, especially my head and if my face in general annoys you, I will remove it from slicing heads vicinity. Just to be safe._

Felix learns his lesson. He keeps his mouth shut.

There is a count of four seconds where the guy assesses how much he would lose in looking over the maths thing. Clearly Felix didn’t propose a very purposeful nor clear set of instructions except for ‘look at it’, but he’s kinda stuck for words at the moment and the many flips his brain is functioning at train level speeds inside his skull soup doesn’t exactly help.

A tiny voice keeps mentioning how much of an idiot he is. That he knows. Thanks brain.

“Tell you what,” the paper stack is removed from his grip, “I’ll do the checking if you do something for me in return.”

“Is this underground speech for ‘sell your kidney’,” his hands slap over where he thinks one of his kidneys are, “because I can sell one and we can split the profit, but don’t drug me and we’re good.”

 

Felix grew up with Rachel, who has the most obnoxious witch hackling of all the witch hackling (he’s seen plenty of musicals to be able to present that argument – Rachel herself auditioned successfully in the roles of witches mainly because of her laughs, he is not kidding there are photographic evidence floating around in her old high school), Hyunjin who laughs like someone drilled a hole in a helium tank at high pressure, say, on top of Everest, and the air escapes at NASCAR speed. There is also Jisung who channels the spirit of Boudica going into battle with the Brits, war cries available whenever he watches some dumb vines on his phone afterschool.

The point is Felix has dealt with all the laughs from the extreme end of the spectrum. He is fully prepared to be laughed at, mentally clenching all the muscles to withhold the impact of the hit.

He doesn’t really laugh, not really, but he grins at Felix, all front row of teeth and wide mouth, not really hot, but rather cute and Felix’s muscles are like ‘I’m tapping out of this one, mate, mockery I could do, cute I can’t’. Which is a fair and honest assessment but he’s breathing out really heavily ah is he looking at Felix goodbye he is bailing.

“Can Yejin come pick that up later, I have to go elsewhere,” he rushes his words and doesn’t expect an answer, “good talking to you, do maths not meth, bye.”

“You never heard what I wanted you to do in return for this,” Mystery Guy flaps the multiple sheets in the air, looking amused and arrogant.

“I told you before, one kidney and we’re good.”

“And I never mentioned kidney. Get piercings. Small silver studs. They’re barely detectable.”

Felix eyes the tattoos peeking from the guy’s shirt sleeves and collar. He debates the hygiene and ethics of him getting piercings. Everybody has those. No one died yet, that he knows of. Jisung has piercings and getting Jisung near needles is the equivalent of finding that Malaysian plane that went missing in 2014. Astronomical. Might as well invent blunt surgical needles. It’s that hard.

“Okay yeah, sure, later, I gotta run,” he gestures to the door, “I’ll be back,” he points at the guy, “don’t disappear.”

 

Hyunjin match starts just a few minutes after Felix nearly crashes onto three people. Seungmin waves him over and allows him to drape all over his back, pointing out the team members. They are really tall and also really mean-looking, that one kid from grade eleven. Hyunjin expertly manoeuvres in between people and wins some goals, jumping and posing as poster boy for a sports magazine. There are cheers from female spectators. Seungmin and him try to be encouraging under frankly deafening organised chanting which sounds really close to a cult incantation of some ancient demon. (Hyunjin isn’t a demon, not yet, there’s some good in that kid).

Before the deciding end goal, someone whispers that Yejin is here to see him. Apologising to Seungmin, he worms his way out, finding the girl with a stack of paper with markings on them, red and pink and green correcting the mistakes. Jisung is going to blow up when he sees them. He hates being corrected after he checked the answers over thirty times prior.

“Thanks kid,” Yejin delivers her words in a solemn tone, “you did more than we asked.”

“There were no fishing lines, so I assumed I was safe, and I was. He didn’t try to kill me or anything,” he gives her one thumb up, “everything is good until Jisung gets back?”

“Don’t think we need Han any longer, because these are the finalising designs for the day. Really, Lee, thank you,” she hesitates, but doesn’t elaborate on her thoughts. “Go to class, you’ll be late along with that crowd.”

 

Felix swings by the music room, his tie askew and hair a mess from Seungmin messing it up and declaring him a good luck mascot after Hyunjin qualified for the regional basketball team.  No potential murders with really weird jutting chin that does things to his heart, just a piece of paper that goes:

_Lee’s Tattooing, 41 Apgujeong-ro 79-gil, Gangnam-gu_

_Saturday?_

And a phone number.

Well it seems that Felix is getting new piercings then.

(Jisung and Chris got wind of it somehow, like they have a constant tracker on him to peep onto his conversations at all time. Felix who knows himself very well had chosen to not heed the advice because he has a good grasp on risk assessment and this is one risk that is okay to venture in, because he hasn’t seen drugs thus far or knives or potentially dangerous weapons. It could change very fast, this assessment, if the guy pulls out the fishing lines, but Felix has good legs from swimming and he’s practiced from all the running away from responsibilities that he partakes in, so he’s confident he can bail lest an organised gang war creeps upon him. Chris fusses over him too much. Jisung just wants to not have half of his identity die. Felix will be relatively not dead by the end of it. That’s all that should matter.

And Eunbin definitely snitched on him, that rat.)

 

“Hey unnie, what’s all that?” Ryujin scribbles one more line onto the notes for the construction people, plans almost done, just need Han’s check before they’re good to start building things.

“Finance and design check,” Yejin stares at the markings, “got ‘em today.”

“By who? Han’s away.”

“Seo. He was at school today and we sent someone to go and see if he’s inside. He didn’t come back at all so I went to check, but no one was inside the music room when I got there. The papers were there, but no boys.”

Ryujin doesn’t believe Seo Changbin actually kills people during school hours so she offers a tentative, “Did you go look for them?”

“Found Felix down at the qualifying match, dunno what’s up with Seo.”

“That’s the first time anyone was around Seo ang got him to do anything. Even Chan can’t, and Chan’s super forceful.”

“I know, kid, I know,” Yejin stares at the posters hanging loosely on the wall, “Lee Felix is the new Chan. He’s got people falling all over his feet to do work for him, foreigners with their clueless faces.”

“Maybe get him to convince Seo to stay until everything finishes. Seems reasonable to ask. Han can work on other things,” Ryujin shrugs, “we’re very understaffed.”

“We could, we could,” Yejin nods, “lemme think about it.”

 

The piercing place is where Jisung goes off all on his little adventures when he’s not burdened with the task of babysitting Felix. He’s praying with all his heart and soul that the modern art beau doesn’t dabble in piercings, or worst, specialise in them. When he’s shown to the waiting room and led inside a place, Minho walks out, face pleasantly surprised at meeting Felix without the context of Jisung, in his workplace of all places.

“Hey, hi, how are you?” He walks over, tattoos visible on his biceps, “piercings, right?”

“Oh my god your needle is penetrating my ear,” Felix realises in abject horror. Minho maintains his bright smile even though in later assessment, Felix’s combination of words might not have been the most appropriate sentence that could be constructed seeing as it’s all phallic and dick-jokey.

“I’m waiting for my guy, ye high, double chin, looks like he kills children in their sleep?” He gestures at his chest with a flat palm, meant to diffuse the tension in him that’s screaming ‘NO NEEDLE BODY HATE’, but with less coherence and more screaming. Minho points an elegant finger to his shoulder and beyond and Felix turns, fully expecting his head to come clean off his neck. To his credit, the guy looks mildly annoyed, but those kinds of annoyed you get over in two seconds because they’re really petty and don’t go to the grudge register much. Minho takes out some probably safety instruments that ensures minimal blood loss and puts on gloves, while Felix panics on the side and checks with the Fishing Line guy about three times on how much blood he’s supposed to lose and ‘is there blood in my earlobe?’

“No,” the guy very patiently repeats, “no there isn’t blood. Minho have done this a million times before. You won’t bleed to death.”

“How did you get one million to come to this tattoo parlour? Is this place even that popular?” Are the burning questions he ponder. The guy rolls his eyes but picks up a stool to sit next to Felix. From the angle he’s lying on, Mystery Guy has like, triple the chin, it’s an extremely unflattering angle and Felix makes a corresponding noise to that, trying to make his eye squints obvious that he’s judging all the chins in display. Minho comes back out with more needles (he’s just doing it to scare Felix, piercings don’t need more than one needle) and Felix is visibly shaking. Needles and him have a complicated history. One time this kid stabs a needle into his arm in textiles when he’s thirteen. Grandmother’s threat of ‘if you sit on a needle it will go inside your blood stream and stab you in the heart’ sits very prominently at the forefront of his mind. It’s an earlobe, but it could easily go inside his ear and in his heart. He can live with one kidney. He can’t live without a heart. That’s called death. Not exactly anyone’s agenda on a Saturday morning.

Something touches his hand and he lets out a panicked ‘eep’, the visceral imagination of the needle’s path into his ear canal, through his throat and oesophagus grinding to a stop because hello, what if the needle goes through his finger first?

A very much hand-like thing holds onto his sweaty palm and his accelerated breathing sort of stops for a bit, because hang on, that squeezing thing his palm is forced to be doing, it’s in time with his pulse. It hurts. So he should probably calm down first before he can die from excess stress before the needle incident can occur. If he goes down it has to be something as weird and bizarre as the life he leads.

“Breathe,” Chinny tells him. Felix imagines him as Matt Smith. That’s a comforting thought. Matt’s a great guy, and an even better Doctor. He’ll go down with the delusion that the Eleventh Doctor held his hand at his dying moments.

Minho scoots back and declares a soft “All done, you can look now.”

Felix sits up, confused.

“Hang on, I thought it’d be longer?”

“It’s a piercing, Lee, not an operation,” Matt Smith Impostor scoots back on his stool. Felix gets really confused, wondering why they’re so close and his inner awareness flag bearer starts an airplane landing routine, mainly spelling out ‘Hi, yes, Chinny Boy indeed held your hand through your first piercings, and no you’re not allowed to panic because that’s bad for your health, save the stress for later’.

Minho temporarily distracts him with a mirror and two silver studs twinkle on his earlobes.

“I’m in love and I love you,” he solemnly confesses, “how much do I pay you?”

“When you come home and see Jisung he’ll tell you. Now run along, I have more clients coming,” he ushers Felix off the seat, feeling all the soon-to-have fatigue in his knees and knocking his legs together. Chinny Man seizes his elbow and bodily drags him out, him shouting a loud ‘thank you’ to Minho in which the Tattoo Beau waves back, big and friendly puppy smile on his face.

 

Outside the parlour is where Felix expects the tugging to stop and they go their separate ways, because criminals of the underworld don’t hang out with awkward foreigners who could betray their shifty crimes.

Instead Chinny asks, “Do you want me to walk you home?”

Felix would very much like the Dark Dangerous Not Conventionally Attractive boy to walk him home. Rachel’s advice on ‘don’t agree too quickly otherwise they think you’re desperate’ is gone with the wind as he gives many nods to show consent. Scarlet O’Hara in the making.

They don’t even talk and don’t attempt to make eye contact. If they see eyes then they see eyes. Felix walks slightly in front to direct the ways to his humble abode, praying Olivia and her witch cackles don’t scare the entire neighbourhood. His sisters get really excited over Felix having a social life. They celebrate by Swahili war chants.

Rachel isn’t home, but Olivia is. From the second storey of their house she throws open her window at an almost unnatural speed, sticks her head out and bellows, “HI FELIX I SEE YOU HAVE A FRIEND.”

“GO AWAY KID!”

“HI FELIX’S FRIEND!” She waves at Chinny Boy. “DON’T WORRY FELIX ACTUALLY ISN’T THAT BIG OF A NERD WHEN YOU GET TO KNOW HIM.”

“IN OR I’LL STEAL YOUR BOOKS AND HIDE THEM.”

 She blows an offensive raspberry to him and retreats, not before waving obnoxiously to the two boys. He tries to gather what’s left of his dignity after it’s been buried so deep he might as well drill oil with it and squares up his shoulder.

“Right,” that’s a good start, “thank you.”

“Right,” Chinny replies, finding everything way too funny, “go in.”

“Oh, thanks,” Felix turns away, “chin boy.”

 

On Monday, besides his whole family blowing up about his piercings and how _Felix this is an important decision all eight of us need to agree on._ No, his family does not have eight people, but Jisung has a vote in Important Family Matters, therefore his opinions are validated. His aunt’s vote from way deep inside the hospital also matters. She mostly just goes with the focus of the bullying, mostly targeted at Felix. Chris, Rachel and Olivia team up on the daily to torment him. Olivia thankfully never mentioned the whole _I saw my brother accompanied by the bad boy in his school he’s so dumb_ fiasco but he’s never sure where her agenda lies. Some day she’ll spill everything. That day it’ll be tragic for everywhere. Olivia is the confession box in their family. The day she cracks is the day this family falls apart, that’s why everyone is so nice to her all the time.

But back to Monday. Monday when he gets to school, people part ways when he’s making his way to class. Boys avert their eyes. Girls freeze. Teachers freeze. People hold their breaths collectively when he tries to get to one place to another. He turns, just to see who’s behind him, and spots the two Jins, Ryujin and Yejin, right behind him, like those two creepy twins in The Shining. No wonder someone nearly cried. He’d cry too if he sees one kid being haunted by two female ghosts.

Seungmin consoles him and reminds him that Jisung is back and worst than ever and they can collectively tease him about being a nerd (Jisung won and advanced into some higher order competition, bound to occur on a Thursday in the next week or so). At lunch Felix takes five minutes off to avoid into the two Jins, scaling walls and floors and nearly slams into a door. At the music playing from somewhere, he slams into a door hinge, and starts screaming lyrics for Bruno Mars. For a second time, Chinny Guy plays for a bit, to entertain him, but stops when Felix attempts to do a series of high notes. He’s tone deaf. Stopping is probably for the greater good of humanity.

“I’m here to study,” he declares, pulling out textbooks and books, “sorry I tried to summon my inner Bruno, I had a stressful day and high notes make me relaxed.”

A hum. Okay…that’s-  that’s good. Felix can just not talk. Korean literature is hard. He needs to focus before he has to seek Woojin’s help. Woojin is very intelligent and expressive with his words, but damn will Felix stoop to helpless student level. He’s got this. If anything he can use Chris.

He labours over the set work, lamenting but also making very small, but milestone-esque progress. When lunch is drawing to an end he packs up, notes that the guy is also doing Korean lit even though he’s obviously very good at it, pen moving at inhuman speed over the page, eyes dashing from textbook to workbook like an intense match between Federer and Federer, but in 2x speed and no balls.

“Will you, uh, be here tomorrow?” He prompts because Rachel reminds him all the time that he’s too forthcoming and he needs to tone it down for friends to come to him.

Another hum. That’s not a no. He’ll take it.

 

He’s collared and dragged to one of the corners near the boys’ toilet. Before he can map out potential escape routes and list enemies he has in this school, Ryujin’s face hovers before his, grinning maniacally.

“Lee!”

“Ryujin,” he responds in the same tone, with a note of fear and horror, “why are you pushing me against the wall?” Note that this is said in a singsong manner that is like a preacher’s tone, but in the context of an involuntary horror house visit. It narrates a horror too much to be captured in a scream, like an out-of-body experience where the soul witnesses the body getting smashes to smithereens in a car crash.

“Guy in the music room,” she whispers, “Seo, I need you to do whatever you did last time that got him to check our shit for the advertising event.”

“Talk to him even though he doesn’t talk back?” This is a question in the form of a statement. His tone goes up a bit. “And just sit with him?”

“That, whatever,” she dismisses it, “this is the longest I’ve seen him in school and we need to keep it up because Han is overworked and he’s always at some nerd shit. Please, bro, lend a hand.”

“Well, I, guess, sure?”

“Great! Brilliant!” She lets go. “Now be off and be merry. I’ll see you in dance later.”

 That in all of the things Felix is capable to do, is possible only if:

  1. It’s not Chinny Matt Smith Impostor (because Felix is weak against his type)
  2. The guy talks back (because he is sensitive towards reciprocal communication)
  3. Him not forgetting the basics of language function (because convincing will lose all meanings and purposes if he doesn’t have the words to do it by)



 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read Cat on a hot tin roof before the next few chapters will make references! No I don't feel smart as Williams, but yes I feel somewhat awesome because I'm on the 'make references to literary work' tier


	4. A fair summer sky that fades into dusk and night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello I am back. And we are more than half-way through!!
> 
> I have more exams (until Wednesday) so the next couple of chapters will go up whenever I'm done editing (and crying at the typos.)
> 
> For now, please have this!

Felix’s life is spent in awe of his female relatives. There’s Mama Lee who gave birth to him, feeds and cares for his idiotic misadventures. There’s Grandma Lee who doesn’t trust in western medicines and treats him through the worst and most annoying ailments easily with her herbal medicine. There’s aunt Eunsoo who balances work, a family and a blog in two different countries, sometimes simultaneously. There’s Rachel who picks up things as fast as she learns them and receives scholarships to three different universities from Korea and the US. There’s Olivia who consistently picked up animals since she was young, never once got bitten and now, at age fourteen, gets along amazingly well with both people and animals and nobody hates her. His point is, females are crafted from pure toughness and hardcore-ity that men aren’t. Can any guy push a watermelon-sized baby out of their ass? Can any guy ever tried to talk to an agitated horse and not be scared that they’ll get decked clean across the face? No. No guy will. But the women? That’s no big deal, they’ve got this.

Just an aside Felix loves his aunt, his mother, his sisters and his grandmother. He should visit aunt Eunsoo. She’s really good at poker and bullshit. Last time he lost his watch for a solid month.

His point is – there is magic in the women of this earth and he’s seeing the result of that magic manifested before his mortal eyes. ½ of the two Jins had informed him that he had somehow non-verbally convinced Seo, the dangerous potentially murderous boy of their high school, to prolong his attendance. Felix has no idea how he did it, but they knew he exercised some foreigner magic on the guy to compel him to linger around for longer. Ryujin’s instruction was ‘lend a hand to the school by doing what it is that you are doing’ which doesn’t really help but he’s seeing Seo, in the music room, bent over the closed piano lid, scribbling a math solution.

Ryujin’s words are Buddha’s rules of life and he’s going to build a shrine in her honour.

“Ew quadratics,” he puts down his biology textbook, “hello you homestuck, did you miss me.”

A hum, although it’s coloured by amusement. He’ll take that as a ‘hi Felix I’m glad to be in your presence too’.

Felix previously had succumbed to the demands of the society around him and came crawling to Woojin for help. It is unspoken knowledge that one only come to Woojin if one is at their wit’s end because he will teach everything from the basics and frankly that’s just insulting. No one ever had that problem in their little tutoring group, partly because Jisung is super smart, Hyunjin balances everything and does well in school, Seungmin just knows all the things he’s supposed to know and Chris is obviously very intelligent, hence the tutoring the children. Woojin sat with him an entire afternoon and went through passages with him. Felix forewent the whole visiting the puppies at the café (Seungmin also joined the steal puppies gang Jisung concocted up) and struggled through the characters slowly but carefully. He can manage things by himself now, with less difficulty than before. He studied literature in Sydney but this was taking it up too many notches. All the circles blend into dots. Who knows what these lines say? Certainly not him.

At least biology has words that he recognises. Hyunjin’s diligent notes and Seungmin’s helpful translation save his grades. He’s bordering on a B+. It’s an actual miracle.

“Is that an enzyme,” he asks his textbook and tries to see beyond the tiny illustration, “I cannot tell.”

There is a snort. A mocking snort. Felix has no time to feel offended, his test is coming up, he has to study.

“It’s an enzyme,” he decides, “if not then the other thing is.”

A few minutes later.

“Why do I need to learn this? Will differentiating an enzyme and a regular protein help me later on in life?” He throws down his pacer which leaves a nasty pencil streak on the paper. “No wait I want to be a surgeon, god damn it I need to know these things.”

Another snort.

“Shut up,” he hisses, “stop hurting my self-esteem.”

It’s a Tuesday lunch. So far Felix had succeeded in bringing Seo in for two consecutive days. If Wednesday is a recurring experience he’s erecting that shrine ASAP pronto L-O-L and commissioning Jisung to do so straight off the bat.

 

Before the rest of him can even process things, he takes out a pen and scribbles in large letters on his arm

GET JISUNG TO MAKE A SHRINE IN THE NAME OF SHIN RYUJIN

The words are big enough that Hyunjin without his glasses would be able to see them. Seo Smith glances at the words and lets out a cough, thumping his chest. His head is down so Felix can’t really assess what emotions are running through that stupidly unconventional attractive face of his, but they’re probably not nice emotions.

Shin Ryujin is actually a psychic. If homage isn’t paid to her she’ll sacrifice your soul to Satan himself and laugh as your mortal body burns. Okay that’s done and everything but damn, Ryujin is _right_. He’s just sitting here but this is the second time _in a row_ (scandalous!) that he saw Seo and he’s starting to believe in his abilities. Whatever those are.

Seo is staring. He should probably sit down. He throws in a challenging look like ‘yes I erect shrines for people all the time, meet me in the pit, mate’.

Seo rolls his eyes and looks back to his works. At least that crisis is averted then.

Felix sits down and tries to remember the historical names of all the Korean cities. Seungmin prepared him flash cards and those probably dragged his measly B- to a low A, but it’s still an A regardless. In the time that he tries (and fails) to remember literally words, music plays softly in the background. Then the volume increases until he’s fully aware of ‘yes, there is music, now dance to it’.

It’s Boys’ Republic’s Secrets. He saw Brendan Kerry ice skated to it. It was beautiful. He’s going to shame the entire nation of Australia for doing a shoddy contemporary interpretation of that majestic dance.

Arms sweeping? Ocean waves. Hopeful ocean waves. Maybe seizures and demonic possession. Crouching? Insecurity, a bad imitation of a turtle. He likes to think he moves fluidly in air like an eagle, but he probably looks like a sloth swinging from tree branches at best. Sloths are not coordinated, and they’re lazy. That’s Felix.

Is this what Sia meant by ‘swing from the chandelier’? Who knows. Maddy Ziegler ruined contemporary dance for him. She’s too good and it hurts his self-esteem.

“That’s really ugly,” Seo finally hacks out, “please stop.”

“Shut up,” he whines, the pitch increasing along the ladder of Rich White Kid Who Didn’t Get What He Want So He’s Throwing A Tantrum, “I can dance better. Given the right jumping space.”

“There’s always the gym,” Seo offers.

“It smells like teenager. I might have to refuse,” he wrinkles his nose, “and I’m in there with the dance kids later on, anyway, and I don’t want my nose to suffer anymore than it needs to be.”

“Seems wise,” Seo closes

“Here is a good choice, per se,” Felix tries to demonstrate his overwhelming enthusiasm for the cramped space that fits about five skinny boys at its maximum, “no leg space, but good. Good like if I die no one will know good.”

Seo lets go of the vestiges of his dignity and cackles out loud. Felix stomps his feet and demands no judgement from people who have no right to be laughing at foreigners.

 

(It’s all jokes and laughter inside a space the size of his closet and his head swims a little at seeing Seo laughs so openly, inhibited, a bit ugly, a bit too real for all of this to not be in a teen movie.)

 

He gathers enough courage by Thursday to scoot close to Seo, mentally pep-talking himself for a smackdown.

Here goes his head.

“Oi, Seo.”

A hum.

“Why are you never at school? Why are you always in here?”

Ten points for subtlety, Lee, Jisung screams inside his head, and no point for execution, dumbass.

“Changbin.”

Felix stops and tries to digest that but at the same time thinks of a formulated nice response. Nothing’s coming up.

“That tells me a lot actually. How about you tell me the weather while you’re at it too, Changbin-ssi, so we can continue this riveting conversation?”

A snort.

“Thought you can’t open your mouth around me,” Changbin closes his book. They meet eyes.

“Felix.”

Felix backtracks. When did he reveal his identity? How does Seo Changbin know? Is he being stalked? Is he going to die? What’s going to happen to him?

“Try to breathe,” Seo Changbin rolls his eyes, “your sister screamed it out last time. Quite loudly too.”

“Shut up, leave my baby sister alone. Don’t stalk her. Give me direct answers,” he straightens up, ready for a formal interrogation, “saying your name is not an answer.”

“Anything is an answer if you try hard enough.”

“Seo, seriously,” he tries for a hefty sigh, “work with me, please.”

Seo uncrosses his knees and puts an elbow on his knee. Felix feels like he entered into a dangerous category of Forbidden Conversations. He briefly wonders if it’s too late to go back out and pretend to go deaf and blind under this guy graduate, to not be any more involved than he already is. He’s bad with secrets. He can’t keep the big ones. He’ll end up ruining everyone’s lives and everyone will paint his desk with cow’s blood saying nasty things like TATTLER and U WHORE.

He watches too much American television, true, but this is Asia. Kids are brutal here. There was a fistfight in the girls’ toilet last week. Someone shattered an entire knuckle. Cow’s blood is nothing, just ethically and morally questionable.

“Feels like school isn’t working. Don’t like the thought and the implications of it. Don’t see the point in it, or anything. Don’t feel like trying and coming to some place that is essentially a prison.”

Felix lets him down gently and tries to make eye contact with the back of Changbin’s head, bowed and looking at his hands.

“I’m not equipped to deal with existentialism, so you’re out of luck if you want practical advice here, mate,” and just to be smart, he throws in, “I’ve been trained to live with the conventions of mendacity that had been set out for me.”

Changbin lifts his head a little, so that they actually meet eye to eye. There’s something other than indifference flickering in his eyes, almost alive, as he concedes.

“Not even gonna try?”

“When people see truth and how pointless everything is, it’s kinda hard,” he breathes, the air getting too thick. It feels like this conversation should be held elsewhere. “Live with it or go back to lying, I guess. Once again, I give no practical advice. You can always take up drinking.”

Seo lets out a laugh. It’s not depreciatory.

Felix feels like he’s getting somewhere. This is dangerous land. There are no rules here once you hear the click. Changbin is dangerous and in danger of himself. Felix must tread carefully or there will be too much damage to patch up. Cracked glass is just as beautiful as untouched glass. There is beauty in everything. He’s just afraid his words will fail him and there will not be enough truth to convince Changbin to not ruin himself.

Changbin clears his throat. Felix leans a bit closer, all silence and attention.

“You busy the next coupla nights?” Feet shuffle.

“Don’t think so. Why?”

“Down at the tattoo parlour, there’s a underground rap battle. Come.”

And see me. But they don’t need to say it to hear it. Felix swallows down the warnings Chris feeds into his ears and goes for a distraction technique, letting a stupid smile loose on his entire face.

“I thought you and your drug gang are looking for fresh blood and I didn’t know how to refuse, that’s good.”

“Oh ha ha, you’re hilarious,” Changbin knocks a hand into his knee. Felix grins easily, eyes disappearing into crescents. “Just because I am aware doesn’t mean I take drugs and alcohol to deal with the truth.”

“They all say that, but Brick drank his life away.”

A sad and charming smile. Changbin meets his eyes once more and stands up, gathering his books.

“He sure did. How about it, the raps?”

“I’ll come, definitely. I swear on my failing grades.” He holds up a single pinkie. “Promise.”

“Good. I’ll help with the carnival prep. Tell Ryujin to stop sending you here.”

“Um excuse my good looks I am here because I want to, Seo, come back, listen to my heartfelt declarations of friendship damn you you mongrel!” He shakes his fists after Changbin’s back who doesn’t give him a second glance.

Felix glances at his watch. He should probably go.

 

On the piano lid, there’s a piece of paper with the lines.

 _My head don't work any more and it's hard for me to understand how anybody could care if he lived or died or was dying or cared about anything but whether or not there was liquor left in the bottle and so I said what I said without thinking. In some ways I'm no better than the others, in some ways worse because I'm less alive. Maybe it's being alive that makes them lie, and being almost_ not _alive makes me sort of accidentally truthful—I don't know but—anyway—_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's getting sadder and I hold no regrets for these changes


	5. Stars and moon suggested by traces of milky pallor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi yes I have updated after a while, got over the hard task of 'I have Changbin rapping what should I do' and here we are with the lyrics from Hellevator. Two more chapters until we're done, let's do it in time before the boys' promotions end ~~~~~

He's mending Olivia’s shirt while Rachel smooths over twenty thousand creases his dad’s shirt somehow accumulated over the past week in an office job, both of them not talking to each other but responding attentively to Olivia who’s dashing in and out doing small chores.

Jisung and Chris walk in like it’s their house, bowing to Mama Lee just as Felix ties all the knots, shaking the shirt twice to make sure it has no loose ends.

“What,” he doesn’t lift his head as Chris sprawls himself all over Rachel’s back, his sister complaining for a glimpse of a second and shifting to accommodate the human koala.

“Get off me,” she grits out. For the sake of complaining.

“Lemme love you,” Chris whines back, tightening his arms like he’s about to choke her to the international WWE league.  Rachel struggles for a while, coughing and thumping his arm, while Jisung examines his handiwork like ‘yes, I shall pay four camels for your textile’.

“How much is this worth in the desert of Arabia?” is what he solemnly concludes, kneeling as if he’s holding Excalibur in his grip.

“Your life.” Felix snatches it back and hooks the shoulder over the hanger, slinging it back into the closet before turning off the iron, kicking Chris and by extension, Rachel away to wrap the hot metal base back under the blanket wrap.

“Why are you here?” Rachel grumbles but doesn’t try to detach Chris from her. He squeezes her middle one last time before letting go, grinning from ear to ear. He nicked her phone. She probably knows because she’s not tapping her hoodie pocket. There’s nothing on it anyways. None of their phones have anything valuable in the memory disc. It’s scarily easy to be devoid of a phone in this family and there would be no outcry for a public search for a phone until a friend at school calls the landline and screams about missed deadlines for the last three weeks.

His father had that terrifying experience at his workplace and luckily the person who was trying to contact him tried to understand why his phone wasn’t with him. Mr Lee couldn’t find the words in him to describe how his phone was in the rice silo for a week and he never actively searched for it because he reckoned it was okay to not have a phone in the year 2016.

He nearly missed that project but the entire office was so astounded by his subversion of the system they gave him an extension. He got it done in two days and scored a secure contract for the company, surprising, astounding, sheerly discombobulating the workers there.

And he did it with only a laptop at work and a bloody high stack of paper.

Amazing man. Almost as amazing as Mama Lee who located the phone through psychic powers and the ability to speak to rice and mice. She chased them out the next day.

“And I repeat,” Rachel sprawls herself on the floor, tired from all the chores. Chris interrupts her.

“We’re here to sell Felix to the Mohammedans,” he declares mini-seriously, “and also to take him to one of our rap sessions.”

“Cool,” Felix consents thoughtlessly.

“Yo you rap?” Rachel nudges Jisung’s shin. The brunette raises an eyebrow like it’s an obvious fact. It was not. Felix squints at him, hands still working at the fold of the pants.

“You write music, you do engineering, you make Stephen Hawking look like he’s your mate, now you rap? Next we know you tap dance and lead the choir in a national competition.” The comment is intended to exaggerate, but Jisung nods at the choir part, as if he intends to do everything before he graduate high school. He’s onto heists next. The Swiss Bank better watch out.

“When and where are these sessions?” Rachel asks from the floor.

“You’re sending me off?” He accuses her from inside his father’s closet. She makes an ‘I-care-for-you-but-not-really-if-you-die’ noise and whines until Chris spits out the name of Lee’s Tattooing, the place where Felix penetrated his virgin ears. His mother had cried herself laughing when that term resurfaced whenever she passes by him, pulling on his ear, cackling as he keels over in pain.

It is not fun. This household is a household of abuse.

“I’m coming with you,” Chris assures them both, as if that is all Rachel needs. She squints.

“It’s only two hours. We’ll all come back. In three complete pieces. Alive. You may even stress-text Felix along our voyage. He will be able to update you and provide you with photographic evidence. No one will be dying under my watch,” he continues. Rachel looks significantly less tense at the mention of ‘not dying’ and she scrapes herself off the floor to inform their mother of Felix’s temporary absence from afternoon activities, due to him having a life and getting outside.

“That’s rude!” He calls out after her.

“Have fun, honey!” His mother assents straight away, trusting Christopher with his life. Felix cannot believe his life is this dispensable, for these people with his blood to play ping pong with.

“Fine, I’m coming, but I’m going to complain all the way there,” he promises, “and I will wish for death but know that I am not actually wishing for death, it’s just the metaphorical one that I’m craving.”

 

Minho is behind the entrance and Jisung, who had bravely undertaken onto himself to become a human catapult, launches all 58 kg of him onto a nice and unsuspecting boyfriend who is just there to open the door for them. Felix lets them be, ears tired from hearing the same mantra of ‘Are we there yet I miss my beau let us quicken our pace’ for the ten-minute walk to the tattoo parlour. Chris lugs his bag in, nodding and bowing to the staff, with Felix tottering with his awkward self and a camera behind, lifting whenever he can.

“So what goes on in these things? Cultish chanting? Black hoods? Knowledge of advanced Latin?” He grits out as they haul one particularly heavy bag of equipment over and on the stage. Chris dusts his jeans clean of dust and holds onto Felix as he scrapes the bottom of his ratty sneakers of the loose screw that lodged itself in there while he speaks, head to the ground.

“People take turn rapping, in teams and we have two teams pitting against each other. One side wins and moves up the ladder, we draw one before we come in, and the overall winner gets to keep their title until the next session. A few manage to keep their title for several sessions but no one really hold it for more than four sessions. Some really good blood shows up every now and then and never resurfaces. It’s really annoying.”

“Is this you trying to convert kids to join your rap gang?” Felix wryly replies to Chris’s increasingly frustrated tone.

His cousin doesn’t think it’s funny but he thinks it is. He cackles as Chris swings a fist at his leg, not hard enough to bruise.

“Shut up. My gang is legitimate. We make rhymes about social issues and mental health. Sod off.”

“Yeah, yeah, good luck, I’m finding the exit.”

 

He lies. He’s trying to find Changbin, which is a lost cause in the crowd of people who happen to wear all black. He’s standing out like a sore spot in his bright hoodie with a meme Rachel printed for him back when he was fourteen and he wears it out of pure spite because she was certain he would not wear it at all. He’s standing on tip toes, he’s jumping everywhere, he’s scouring the floor for the short guy, but to no avail. Nothing works. No Changbin to be found. It’s like it’s some elaborate mislead that Felix spectacularly got tricked into, which honestly isn’t hard on a daily basis, but he thought there was a thing that they could potentially share and obviously that’s not going to happen any time now.

Chris and Jisung are nowhere to be found, which means that they should be getting ready to be onstage, their words as weapons. He’s praying no one would kill anyone –

The guy onstage unleashes a string of swear words so violent the audience freezes for a solid second before exploding in praise. Felix doesn’t think it’s that praiseworthy, but the intent to hurt was clear and also murderous intents, so he sincerely hopes there’s no actual killing here because his Korean isn’t good enough to testify for a murder trial.

Next, this guy, tiny, straight-backed, covered in more black than the entire space combined, which is a supernatural feat in itself, climbs onto the stage, black face mask obscuring everything but harsh eyebrows and prepares a stance for a duel to the death. Felix watches, half paying attention and half searching for the exit, the words pouring out in Korean too fast for his brain to play catch up to.

 The mike is lowered to the guy’s mouth and Felix doesn’t think too much of it. He looks up, eyes tracing the ugly roof and catches the guy’s eyes.

The face mask is pulled down and before his mouth can form the words ‘Seo Changbin you punkass bitch’, Changbin starts to rap.

Felix should’ve known better. Boys who read and quote Cat on a hot tin roof are bound to have some deep dark conflicts within themselves. He’s rooted, spell-bound, bewitched, charmed, two feet glued to the floor and festering his place there as an incessant weed, not leaving.

How can he when he hears Changbin rap about being stuck, stuck in this body this society this limit that even he himself imposes onto his understanding, that there is a dark tunnel and there is no way out. He has no maps, the road ahead is one obstructed like darkness and the road behind was a maze, he’s sweating bloody sweats and tears in the shadow. Nobody and everybody is against him and they’re all riding on his pain to go up and leaving him behind, under, lower.

“So I run and I believe,” he breathes into the dusty mike, the entire room quiet. Felix meets his eyes, a million things transpiring and not between them. “I am beyond these limits, beyond my dark past, if I run, if I believe. I’m running so I forget, forget to lie, lie to believe.”

The crowd doesn’t need much time to deliberate a decision. The roof explodes with how the sound tries to escape the physical subterranean constraints, to go up.

Felix moves in between bodies, weaving himself through the crowd. He's itching to find out how is it that one guy has all these words in him but Felix never heard them uttered aloud and they're left unsaid in the pages of a notebook or at the conclusion of an underground rap battle.

They meet in the middle of a floor full of cramped bodies and the words still ring in his head.

"Let's go somewhere, escape from here." _From everything._

"Really?"

"Really."

"I believe you." _And more_. But those words are left unsaid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried for angst and this is what happened. I was also listening to the audio of the showcase while writing this so it's 98% me trying not to cry while typing and 2% functional editing please forgive this dysfunctional soul I am a mess all the time.
> 
> What did you all think? Sorry it took so long for it to go up. Once again there are only two more chapters and my holiday starts on Thursday so fingers crossed that I can get these done soon!


	6. Truth is something desperate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, second last chapter, I am in need of much sleep after this, do forgive my careless mistakes, I will edit this after proper rest
> 
> But also Me Pondering Life And Projecting, A 7 Part Saga On Its Way To Completion

Chris scans around. He sees no Felix. That is a concern. That is a _significant_ concern. He promised to protect the child with his life and Jisung’s. Child abduction often results in death. He can’t just lose a kid like this the place is tiny how can one just up and g –

Minho snaps his fingers in front of his face. Chris turns his head, full of despair, to gaze upon Minho’s objectively very beautiful eyes but otherwise unhelpful face. Jisung is attached to his side, nuzzling too close inside his neck. Raising a brow, Chris clasps his palms together and gestures for Minho to continue, or else he would engage in a nationwide search for his lost cousin.

“He’s with a friend of mine,” Minho whispers, humming into Jisung’s now half-choke.

“That’s,” Chris ponders, “useful, except your friend could be a murderer.”

“I trust him sincerely. If anything does happen, I will plead to charges of being accessory to murder if that would appease you, although I doubt my friend will have anything on Felix. He’s scrawny, small and angry. Felix will be able to outrun him if a knife comes out any time during now and when they come back.”

Jisung informs him that he’s ‘being too extra’ and nuzzles further into him. Chris briefly contemplates the ethics of putting a tracker on Felix. He should’ve. Now all he can do is wait.

 

There is an ice cream place nearby, so Changbin informed him.

Changbin also proceeds to walk him there. It’s fine. Felix is _fine_. It’s not like the distance between them is closing and dwindling until there’s not much space between Felix’s hand to Changbin’s.

He. Is. Okay. Bagels. Topatoes. Chicken pie. 

He tries not to think too much but also not too little, still rattled from the lyrics. It’s always baffling when lyrics speak to the soul and beyond the soul, reaching crevices and layers of the palimpsest that he’s unable to reach on his own.

Changbin’s knuckles knock against the back of his hand. He doesn’t try to reciprocate or force anything, letting their skins graze against one another, hot flushes and then cool. Each extreme corresponds to his heart rate spiking and dipping. He is on his own, an island in the middle of the ocean, titillating until he topples or stays standing, his layers peeling and pulling. It’s daunting, walking the fine line between falling apart and coming together as he sneaks looks at Changbin, distinct in mellow street lamps. He fears it. Fears unravelling. But he also craves it, knowing there are things coming together at the ruination of Felix Lee.

He lets the back of his hand linger on Changbin’s skin, the touch hopefully conveying something substantial because his words have evaded him. Dodged away with the retreating sunlight.

Changbin has something like a smile on his face. That gives Felix baseless hope.

 

“Hazelnut,” Changbin hums as Felix bites directly into his three tiers of ice cream scoops, “interesting.”

“Hazelnut and caramel is God’s blessing on this earth, fight me,” he swings his non-occupied hand at Changbin in jest, meaning nothing violent in his arm swinging.

“I’ve said nothing and I’ve done nothing,” the other boy raises a palm in an attempt of reconciliation but Felix isn’t buying it. He’s good with words and communication. Sometimes not talking and not doing anything counts as communication too.

He glares and kicks his leg aggressively at Changbin, chasing the boy with an ice cream cone in his hand. In a happier universe, maybe he’s able to reach out and entwine fingers and hands and palms together with the other boy, but they are in this universe where it is unhappy to be alive and more tragic to be living with mendacity, so Felix doesn’t let the space between his hand and Changbin dwindle, too fearful of hope. Because hope too is a lie but it is also truth and he’s not making the choice of extremity tonight.

They’re running and they’re walking, close but not enough and Changbin stops at a playground and runs to a swing set, shedding layers by layers. Felix can feel the palimpsest stripping, until he’s at the bottom most level of ground and there’s soft earth instead of hard and dry cement caking his innards.

“Sit,” the other boy is already done with his ice cream, swinging on the swing, feet not touching ground.

Like a little boy, Felix thinks fondly. But he doesn’t voice that. Swallows the last of his ice cream. Drags his feet to the wooden swing seat. Lets himself down gently.

They don’t talk for a while, Felix looking up while Changbin looks ahead. Perhaps there are too many words out there and there are not enough words in them to say anything about anything. Perhaps words aren’t what they need then. But what then can they speak with?

“Oi Lee.”

“Felix. Felix Lee.”

“Alright James Bond, calm down,” Changbin moves to one side as Felix veers to the right of him to knock into the boy, outcry on his tongue about how ‘007 is cool stop insulting him’.

“What do you want?” He settles back down, huffing.

“Alright Felix. Tell me something,” he hears the voice, soft and melted into the night. Instantly he sobers up. Knows that he’s entering grey areas once more.

He has more than something to say. He has plenty to say. He wants to vouch for the abundance of life out there. He wants to rebel against the mundanity of everything and of routine. He wants to say that it sucks sometimes because there is no point in anything and we’ll all die someday. That words are lies and a lot of the world is built on untruths and once you become known to this colossal lie you can’t be the same. You can’t forget.

But Felix also wants to plead that he believes not in truth but in people and in their need and want to live and he wants to show Changbin this, not with words. Words lie and words are truths too and they’re one and the same but people insist they are apart and Felix is swimming in his head trying to come up with the correct word for this thing he wants to say. He just wants to lie down. Closes his eyes. Never emerges.

He doesn’t tell Changbin anything. Offers silence and a helpless shrug.

“There’s nothing I can do,” he fidgets, “or say to you.”

“Calm down there,” Changbin laughs a little, “you sound like you’re preparing for my death.”

“You sound like you’re getting ready for it,” he shoots back. “It’s only understandable that I would copy you.”

“You’re not wrong,” they meet eyes, “I have come to say goodbye. My absence will be undetermined. It’ll take as long as it needs to be.”

“I,” there is a pause, “take care.”

“I’ll try my best,” there is another pause, “no promises.”

“Don’t promise me anything,” Felix looks down at the concrete ground, “never promise. They’re baseless. They’re words. There’s nothing to swear on.”

“You’re awfully,” Changbin swallows the words back down, tasting the flavour inside his mouth, “existentialist today.”

“I have crises every day. Today is just a Hate Society And Its Constructs day,” he kicks the miniscule pebbles underfoot, “plus you make me sad generally.”

“I tend to have that effect, yes,” there is something like amusement. Felix is not looking up. “Won’t you lie to me?”

“About?” He does look up then.

“Promise me you’ll be well. Take care. Forget. Pretend nothing happened. Take out the earrings,” Changbin doesn’t step closer and Felix wishes he asked him to, wanting to close that insufferable grey gap between them, “lie to yourself. Don’t break because of things of flesh and blood.”

“Easier said than done,” he sighs, “but I make no promises. I’ll do something about it.” Closes his eyes. Doesn’t want to see Changbin’s eyes anymore, deep and dark and all the maddening spin of deconstructive madness.

“Thank you,” Changbin is still again, “for all of this.”

“No,” Felix shakes his head, “thank you.”

“You don’t need to say anything, Felix, you never have to. Save your words for another occasion. For happier occasion. Be joyous and enjoy life then.”

“While you, what, squander it away in death and insanity? You think I can just leave you to rot?”

“You can,” Changbin pleads, “just forget. I’m never here.”

“If I could forget, I would,” he echoes back, in the same tone. “God there’s so much space and there’s – just, this thing between us and I don’t want to-”

He bites off the words, crushing them to bits under his molars. No. There’s nothing. There’s nothing to say.

“Don’t,” Changbin is gentle and soft, “name it as anything.”

“I’m not naming anything as anything,” he is derisive, “I want to keep this lie. Keep it as one good true thing between us two.”

“Nothing more,” Changbin closes his eyes, “nothing less.”

“Is it easy to just forget?” He wonders.

Changbin laughs, hollowed out.

“Oh darling, wouldn’t that be funny it is was true?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do tell me how you felt about it!!! I really love comments and feedback! Don't hesitate to find me on Twitter also, I am there a lot of time
> 
> [TALK TO ME ON TWITTER](https://twitter.com/tacobell_com)   
>  [A PENNY FOR YOUR STARVING ARTIST](https://ko-fi.com/jarofactonbell)   
>  [LOOK IT'S CURIOUS CAT I GOT IT AT LAST FIND ME TALK TO ME](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny)


	7. Do not neglect the obvious in pursuit of the obscure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I think I might have loved you," he admits. Wonders if it is true or not.
> 
> "I think I might have loved you too, but wouldn't it be funny if it was true?" Changbin bows and walks back, fists curled in his pocket.
> 
> "Wouldn't it be funny if it was true," Felix repeats the words. It all hurts the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, finishing stuff?
> 
> I know. it's so shocking. I've shocked myself too. But you know what, it's here, it'd badly done, do I need a sequel? Eh maybe when I gather up enough energy in me to (so no until I feel better after losing so much sleep)
> 
> Sorry if it ends a bit too saddy sad sad but this was literally the ending that made sense to me because I am Changbin I started out as Felix but over time I became Changbin I have his issues so cry me many rivers guys criticise me I deserve all of it

Somebody stubs their finger near Felix’s desk and about three people who aren’t Felix snap their heads up to glare at the perpetrator.

“Sorry,” Sanha clasps his two hands together in apology. Felix’s head is still down, slotted between crossed arms on his desk. Jisung plays with his jumper, lines on his forehead intense.

“Is he better?” He does an interpretative dance.

“Go away giant baby,” Jisung shoos him away, “leave us.”

 

It is clear people are tiptoeing around him. He can tell. He can see the heads turning faster than him when someone runs down the corridor screaming ‘Felix Lee!’ who aren’t a friend or a family member. He can hear people plotting and designating who walk him to class, the whole school protective of him, the dogs of the neighbours protective of him. He’s grateful, he really is, but it’s too over the top. They ought not to do any of this. He will forget. He will pick himself up eventually.

There is something poetic about grieving for what wasn’t there, but what almost could’ve been. He doesn’t even bother to explain himself or rationalise anything. What Changbin and Felix was and could’ve been – a finger can’t even be placed on it. For any sort of classification to work, he’ll need two palms and a leg. All stolen and cut off from their owners.

Jisung might’ve gotten a hint of what went on, but they operate on a strict policy of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’. It is enough work keeping his relationship secret from virtually everyone else and Jisung understands that there is something unspoken in the way Felix sulks and keeps reading Keats and Poe. Reading and reciting the verses. Rachel rigged the TV again to let him indulge and binge watch many Australian soap opera classics like Home and Away and Neighbours. There is the knowledge that something is happening, no one is sure what, and everybody is too afraid of approaching him in askance of it. For now they leave him. To sulk. To grieve. To come into terms with what happened. Nobody told him off, to the fear of 2JIN, the twinned terrors that shadow Felix’s every footstep and literally everybody else. He is loved by many and he loves many. He cannot be touched, and it frustrates and liberates him simultaneously.

There was nothing to be said. There was nothing to be named. It could’ve been something but there was so much lying and denying and words not being enough that it’s better to forget. Lie in bad faith. Forget Changbin and what they did together ever happened. One boy and Felix is coming closer to being undone. It’s so silly. One boy and everything he knows became unravelled. He has a purpose somewhere and Changbin is just an addictive thing. He was drugged on the thrill of touching the flame that he wasn’t aware he’s burning too, much faster than his self can propel towards the flame.

Damn. He’s trying to live his best life out here, but all he’s doing is moping over what could have been. Not what was, but something that could have happened, could have came to be, could have been something. There was something, but everyday it dwindles closer into nothing that he’s not quite sure if there was anything at all. He could chase it, could follow it through and see what? Changbin is Changbin and Felix is Felix. It wouldn’t be very happy for either one of them. It wouldn’t be any sort of enjoyment in pursuit of this…obscurity.

Do not neglect the obvious in pursuit of the obscure.

The obvious is that he is unhappy and in neglecting that, he might glimpse three seconds of satisfaction at defining the obscure, but gratification is not all honey and ribbons. He’s a good kid. Changbin and him could match. Could. It might work out. There’s a possibility.

But he’s tired of possibilities. He’d much rather simper around the dance recitals and soccer games with his sisters. Why chase the obscure and make himself and others miserable? There is nothing to gain except further misery. When Changbin gets here, they’ll talk. Reach some sort of conclusions. But until then, Felix wants his life to have no what ifs. His narrative is not to be contingent with a romantic subplot. His tale is supposed to be of all the shenanigans he gets up to and all the Korean literature he has yet to master.

He emerges from his bedroom, feeling horrible and dried like a nasty sultana that didn’t shrivel up right. His mum is preparing lunch, ordering his dad and Rachel around. Olivia is off in tuition. He stubs a toe onto the last step on the stairs and all three people look up, eerily synchronised. His mum hides a smile between the twists of her lips.

“Go get the pan. Fry some garlic,” she orders and the stunned atmosphere diffuses out of the room. It’s as if he didn’t have an extended sulking session for a week and hid himself in his room and everyone else had to tiptoe around him. Nothing had transgressed, and everything is at it is.

As it should. This is familiar, this is certain. He likes this life. He appreciates and enjoys this life.

 

 

Hyunjin told them he’s bringing a friend over to meet all of them. His name is Jeongin, or something. He’s excitingly distracting, and the break Felix needs from the break that he took. Nobody truly danced around him as opposed to tackling him into many hugs. No one asked what happened and how did he reach this revelation and he’s not looking forward to filling them in that thought process. That’s privy only to one depressing asshole when he drags his ass back to answer him on why he ghosted for a month.

Jeongin is introduced in the mess that is dance practice, sprinting home for swimming and wolfing down food for further studying.

“Hi,” he’s small (not really, he has at least a few centimetres on Felix, but look at him. Look at those cheeks. The braces. The baby smile. He’s a small bean. Much small. All small. Felix will protect him with his spindly arms and let no harm come to the baby) and he smiles a lot.

“Jeongin!” Hyunjin waves him to join the Exhaustion Club, previously Dance Club, but they’ve rebranded to fit their current physical states better. “This is a friend of mine, Yang Jeong In.”

Those who are not being crushed by their own lungs coo and clutch Jeongin’s hands in adoration, completely sold by this shy little bean who has _the cutest smile oh my god guys look he glows his eyes glow I want to adopt you and bury you in a marshmallow onesie!_ Even the dead and exhausted lift a hand in greeting, squinting through sweat-blinded eyes to gaze upon the brilliance that is a certain addition to their biweekly dance practices, because Hyunjin is Hyunjin and he loves bringing in his friends from other schools, because he wants everyone to be friends. Jisung told him that _life isn’t about friendship and bracelets Hwang sometimes you have to stand on someone’s head to get to places_ and ended up punching Hyunjin because well, there was the question of height and _how will you step on anyone’s head Jisungie you don’t even have jackshit on me and I’m not even tall_ and Jisung of all people is very sensitive to his ambiguous height.

“You’ll come to the high school showcase, yes?” Ryujin leaves no room to oppose, advancing up and at the child’s face, whose repeated blinking in Morse Codes might have been _help me get away from this crazy lady please I beg you_ but no one of them understand that code or is brave enough to confront an excitable Ryujin, so Felix is tasked with returning Jeongin’s call for help with an apologetic gaze of his own.

“Yes?” The poor thing squeezes out, cornered, knowing that there is only one viable response.

“Great! Think about going here, yeah, when we perform!” Ryujin advances upon him like a lioness ready to devour her prey whole. Jeongin gulps and about three people spread themselves out in annoying starfish/angel limbs to impede Ryujin’s movements, with her tripping and rolling to one side when she steps on someone’s shoulder.

Felix approaches the little guy, pats him a little on his shoulder blade. It must’ve been so traumatic, going through all of that. Jeongin heaves a sigh of defeat, of utter exhaustion and falls into Felix who catches him, reassuring him that Ryujin is a lot to handle, but she means well. Probably.

“Probably,” Jisung rolls his eyes.

“Let’s get you compensatory ice cream,” Hyunjin bounces ahead, an excitable retriever, wagging its tail.

“Hyung, you don’t have to-” the baby complains but his words fall on deaf ears. He’s been adopted now. He’s part of their crew. He is one of them. Wait until Seungmin and the parents meet the little guy. They’ll just steal him from his school and feed him regularly, abducting him on weekend trips to the beach and his parents will give him up because Chris will be a much better parent than anyone could be and it’s for the best that Jeongin is to be Chris’s child.

Felix is right and soon enough Jeongin becomes a part of their mismatched gang. Seungmin appreciates his appearance, having someone else to be the baby and can thus dive under the radar of concern, sneaking off to play sports later and the Parent Figures would not notice, because having Jeongin join them is like having a new baby and everyone is ooh-ing over the new addition and the youngest children can just sneak out and vandalise trucks without repercussions because discipline had been stashed under nappies changed and nobody can tell them to do shit. Felix and Seungmin bond more as they play baseball in abandoned land plots and Felix teaches him AFL, tackling each other to the grass and laughing maniacally when they stack onto one another, chasing each other around with those foam balls that don’t hurt when you throw them at someone’s face, even if you have killer strength like Chris. Felix would know. He got nailed in the nose at least three times with Chris’s nasty projectile during dodgeball when they were younger and frailer, but he survived, so he’s not that easy to take down. Jisung watches for openings in the Parents’ guard and sneaks out to play too, using maths and science against them _and winning,_ the laws of jock and nerd completely erased because he’s insanely smart at winning. Eventually Hyunjin comes along and Jeongin, the Parents relenting their overprotective grip on their beloved babies, letting go means loving yada yadi hoo.

Minho is introduced to Jeongin too.

Woojin is ruthless in drilling academic discipline into the boy. He has no kind bones in him when he’s teaching, rivalling even Chris’s harsh words and criticisms, but Jeongin is a good and hardworking bean, and nobody beams harder than the Parent Figures when the baby shows report cards of improving grades.

Today is just another day of exhausted extracurriculars and studying. It’s 6, the sky half in the evening, half still in the afternoon, weirdly in limbo. All the children have just finished their homework load for the day, let off now to snack and sleep and run around to get rid of cortisol. Jeongin had been at choir and he’s en route to grace them with his presence. Hyunjin texts him before, rolling to lie face down on the carpet of Jisung’s room, groaning. He might’ve grabbed Seungmin’s phone, but at this point they’re all too familiar with each other and the passwords of all their phones are vague shadows of each other. Boundaries are social constructs. So is education. Children shouldn’t be studying this much they’ll all die before they’re 20.

“Sometimes, don’t you wish you could just,” Seungmin begins an intricate twirling of his hands, white fingers and pretty manicured hands conducting an invisible orchestra of idiots, “recharge yourself like a battery?”

“If I was a battery then I am permanently on 20%,” Jisung groans out from inside his closet.

“My permanent mood is a big fat 10, out of 100, of battery life,” Hyunjin flips over, opens then closes his eyes. Keeps the eyes close for a long time.

“Hwang, this is not a competition,” Jisung deadpans, “and if it is, Chan would win.”

“A fat yes,” Felix feebly raises a hand in support. It feels like jelly. “I’m so tired.”

“Jeongin is coming with snacks but he can buy energy drinks if the need arises,” Seungmin glances at his phone. A collective zombified ‘please’ choruses back and he quickly types out a haphazard ‘buy two packs we all need those’.

“When’s the dance thingo?” Jisung flops over and smacks onto Felix with his knees and elbow.

“Tomorrow afternoon, fool,” Hyunjin replies.

“Stop elbowing me,” he complains and shakes Jisung off him.

 

 

If Hyunjin shakes anymore, he’ll be one of those bobble head figurines, vinyl pop head figures something or another that Sanha religiously hoards in his room and it would be unfortunate for his head will be bigger than the rest of him. It would be funny, but it will also be mean because Hyunjin would cry about it.

“Stop fidgeting,” Ryujin nags him.

“I can’t,” he wails and Felix pats him, very awkwardly pats him, two bro pats in a failed attempt of emotional support. “I’m too nervous!”

“You have the skills. Why be anxious,” Eunbin mutters, passing by with ribbons to fasten around their arms and thighs, because branding.

“Stop annoying him. He’ll cry for real,” Yejin swats all of them away and gathers Hyunjin in  a clasping hug that is more crushing his ribs with the strength of her arms than hugging, but she’s trying and she’s a bit less murderous today than any other day, so she gets brownie points for effort.

“Come on, we’re up,” Felix cranes his head out, clicking his tongue. “We’ll smash it, come on, let’s have a good time.”

 

They do have a good time, but that’s not the best thing that happened.

Jeongin’s face could be spotted from the crowd of middle school babies checking out their school. Jisung’s project blossoms in a school-wide flower display of information stands and extracurricular clubs strategically positioned for maximum viewing capacity. Many students and parents question this teacher and that student. They’re running along fine.

As fine as he can see, but he’s optimistic. Jeongin waves banners of their names as they performed and Hyunjin visibly relaxed through his turn, his movements becoming fully fluid.

The applause is thunderous and Felix bows so many times his back is compromised, but they did it, after all those gruelling practice sessions, they did it, it was such a good piece of choreo, now they can go and eat food.

He steps a toe into backstage and suddenly there are balloons from Woojin and Jeongin screaming about how they’re so cool and _I want to dance like that hyung oh my god teach me your ways!_

People were pelted with presents and he’s bombarded with a bouquet and whoop, look at that, Lee Minho and Jisung half-hugging each other, Jisung with a contented kitten smile at the head pats administered by Minho.

“You did good,” he hears a voice.

He is so not ready for this. This is the furthest thing on his mind. He’s drenched in sweat, there is a tattered ribbon on his forearm and a headband that is also soaked in sweat. He’s unflattering from every angle and his last two brain cells died three minutes ago.

“Thanks,” he mutters. “Thanks for coming.”

“I couldn’t miss it. You mentioned it for quite a while when we were talking,” Changbin is in inconspicuous casual dress, the trace of him going to this school very much non-existent.

Felix scrunches his nose. Disdain and sadness.

“Thanks then. You paid attention to my rambling,” he smooths out the tattered ribbon, not meeting Changbin’s eyes. Waits. There’s gotta be something. They could talk before the Ghosting. Why is there nothing to talk about now?

“Someone got to. God forbid how much more I would suffer if I didn’t.”

He lifts his head. Changbin flashes him a small smile. He has bags under his eyes and tattoos on his neck. Still the same kid. Still the same promises.

“Boo hoo. Cry me a river, Seo,” his hands reach out to grasp at the air near Changbin’s face and retreat, in fear of what he would do if they touch. Maybe hold onto Changbin forever. Maybe slap him. Who knows. The odds are high and wildly unpredictable. “You back or is this just a stopping point?”

“I wanted to talk to you since the last time we spoke,” he makes aborted hand motions, half jazz hands and half I-rendered-you-into-sulky-tears-and-I-don’t-know-how-to-remedy-this, “things didn’t go down well.”

“Uh huh,” Felix’s tone is dry.

Changbin runs a hand through his hair.

“But I meant most of it.”

“Which parts, Seo? The forgetting you part or the suicide part? I was concerned, asshole, and I cried myself sick. Don’t do that to me. Keep the extra to a minimum, please, I’m weak-hearted,” he swats and lands a weak punch onto Changbin’s arm. Keeps his fist there, barely touching fabric and flesh underneath. Seo Changbin is so thin. He can feel his bones on his knuckles.

“The thing,” Changbin chews on the inside of his cheek, “between us. Whatever that was. Let’s just – not.”

“Eloquent,” he snorts.

“I’m trying my best here. All the signs and stuff, all of that, just-”

He grinds down the words and shoves a forceful hand into his hair. Felix watches, tightening his fist and withdrawing his knuckles into his side.

“I had a bit of a moment to myself after our talk,” he speaks to the ground. “Whatever cat and mouse game we were playing would only hurt the more we continue. I recognise that there is potential for a healthy whatever between us, but we live here and you don’t live in my world and I don’t yours. A promise would just tear us apart instead of bringing us together. You seem to have issues of your own that I would be happy to help you through, but then, I can’t love your mental illness away and you can’t love mine away. It’ll be much better for us to pursue something else besides a likely damaging and short-lived interest that will just fizzle and hurt afterwards.”

“You thought about this,” Changbin hums.

“Extensively.”

“It’s hurting you, I can tell.”

“Doesn’t it hurt you too?”

“Obviously,” he snorts, the sound empty in the resounding truth of their sort of mutual admittance. "It's pain both ways. I know this."

"Sorry," Felix offers. 

"Ain't your fault, kid."

"It's not your fault too. Don't beat yourself over it. Don't blame yourself, most of all." Changbin and his self-sacrificing tendencies will beat the poor sap into a pulp of nonexistence. 

"Well I need something to blame, don't I? Somewhere to concentrate this expected pain. It's the lesser of the two evil but," he bites off his words again, "it still hurts."

Felix knows that, but once again he has no words to comfort this tormented soul. Or warmth enough to offer. He's only skin and bones that shiver under Changbin's gaze and nowhere else can he seek warmth. 

"I'll get over it," Changbin rotates his neck, "I'll be fine."

Felix lifts his brow. Doubting. Doesn't need to word it.

"With time, Lee. I'll get over myself. I won't be fine but I'll be at ease." There are voices calling for them. Changbin shoves his hands inside his pocket, grumbling nonsense. "Take care of yourself. Think of me as a passing dream."

"You won't come back?" He gets up, stays grounded. He doesn't give chase, not anymore. 

"I can't promise," there's something unsaid in Changbin's smile - there's always something unsaid in all that Changbin says and does. "Don't do anything stupid, Lee."

"You're taking all the stupid with you," Felix shoots back, feeling something in him splinter. He chose this. He made his mind.

Ah. One more strike would still hurt the same.

"Are my words all mendacity to you?"

"My head tells me so. I don't have any way to see this truth that you ardently advocate. I can't seem to grasp what is in front of me," there is a delirium and an entire world separating them. "It's all lies and liars, darling."

"I think I might have loved you," he admits. Wonders if it is true or not.

"I think I might have loved you too, but wouldn't it be funny if it was true?" Changbin bows and walks back, fists curled in his pocket.

"Wouldn't it be funny if it was true," Felix repeats the words. It all hurts the same.

 

Jeongin finds him staing at the ground, clutching one fist to his heart. He wasn't crying, but he isn't smiling.

"You right?" The child touches his shoulder.

"I will be," he promises. This much is true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya know the drill, folks
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